Poverty Row/B-Movies Thread

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

This was suggested by a conversation with Lord Ripper on the What Have You Been Watching thread.

vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/4300/watching?page=162

List your favourite cheap horror movies here.
Maybe it's good, maybe it is so bad it is good. Let us know!

I mentioned this one, The Invisible Ghost with one of my favourite actors, Bela Lugosi. It also has Clarence Muse whom I'd like to see more of. Lugosi gets to act beyond the steriotype here. Muse's butler is played straight, rather than the usual comedic relief that black actors had to suffer back then.

[ripper]

King of the Zombies from 1941, distributed by Monogram. A plane crashes on a tropical island and the crew discover there are strange goings-on including voodoo rituals and wartime espionage. Stars Dick Purcell, Mantan Moreland and Joan Woodbury. Purcell died at the early age of 38 and is probably best known for playing Captain America in the Republic serial. Mantan Moreland is the best thing about the film. He's very likable and should have been a much bigger star. Joan Woodbury was one of Monogram's leading ladies. She mostly played in B features and also played the title role in the Brenda Starr serial. There are plenty of laughs courtesy of Mantan Moreland. It's not a particularly good film, but passes 65 minutes or so pleasantly enough imo.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Oct 19, 2023 18:09:22 GMT ripper said:

King of the Zombies from 1941, distributed by Monogram. A plane crashes on a tropical island and the crew discover there are strange goings-on including voodoo rituals and wartime espionage. Stars Dick Purcell, Mantan Moreland and Joan Woodbury. Purcell died at the early age of 38 and is probably best known for playing Captain America in the Republic serial. Mantan Moreland is the best thing about the film. He's very likable and should have been a much bigger star. Joan Woodbury was one of Monogram's leading ladies. She mostly played in B features and also played the title role in the Brenda Starr serial. There are plenty of laughs courtesy of Mantan Moreland. It's not a particularly good film, but passes 65 minutes or so pleasantly enough imo.

This is a favourite of He Who Shall Not Be Named. Apparantly he fell in love with the actress that plays the maid, a certain Marguerite Whitten. Her double act with Moreland is fun.

[ripper]

Oct 20, 2023 10:40:53 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

Oct 19, 2023 18:09:22 GMT ripper said:

King of the Zombies from 1941, distributed by Monogram. A plane crashes on a tropical island and the crew discover there are strange goings-on including voodoo rituals and wartime espionage. Stars Dick Purcell, Mantan Moreland and Joan Woodbury. Purcell died at the early age of 38 and is probably best known for playing Captain America in the Republic serial. Mantan Moreland is the best thing about the film. He's very likable and should have been a much bigger star. Joan Woodbury was one of Monogram's leading ladies. She mostly played in B features and also played the title role in the Brenda Starr serial. There are plenty of laughs courtesy of Mantan Moreland. It's not a particularly good film, but passes 65 minutes or so pleasantly enough imo.

This is a favourite of He Who Shall Not Be Named. Apparantly he fell in love with the actress that plays the maid, a certain Marguerite Whitten. Her double act with Moreland is fun.

The double act Marguerite Whitten has with Moreland is, I agree, very enjoyable. He made a series of B movie comedies with Frankie Darro for Monogram in the 40s, and Moreland is often the best thing about them. He also had a recurring role as Birmingham Brown in the Charlie Chan films when Monogram took over the series.

The Corpse Vanishes, another of Bela Lugosi's Monogram distributed cheapies, this one from 1942. Co-stars Luana Walters and Tristram Coffin, both of whom were firmly B movie actors, though quite prolific. Brides are seemingly dying at the alter, but actually being put into suspended animation from the scent of an unusual orchid. Lugosi's Dr Lorenz steals the bodies to use glandular secretions to keep his wife young and beautiful. A spirited girl reporter takes up the case and discovers horror in the Lorenz mansion on a dark and stormy night. I confess that I like this one, though the stealing from bodies to keep someone young and/or beautiful has been well used over the years. I also enjoy films with sassy girl reporters, of which there were a fair few in the 30s/40s.

[helrunar]

I really enjoy The Corpse Vanishes; and it was a favorite film of my late friend Coco, and I always remember him whenever I revisit this. Coco had a thing for Elizabeth Russell, who is always fascinating. Interesting little article about her:

thedreambookblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/moya-sestra-the-cat-like-career-of-elizabeth-russell/

The Devil Bat had such a fun role for Bela. Another very good film that gave him a lead part in this period was Columbia's Return of the Vampire, which had originally been intended as a sequel to Dracula, but they had to change the script due to legal issues (or so I have read). The last time I saw it, I thought Bela looked rather sweet and grandfatherly in most of his close-ups. Funny enough, his character is named Tesla in the film.

Hel.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Lugosi made a British film about the Mary Celeste called The Mystery of the Mary Celeste, unfortunatly it only survives as a cut US version called The Phantom Ship. 18 minutes are missing. I haven't watched it yet. I was looking to see if any of his silent films survive. I found this, Daughter of the Night , I assume it is the shortened American version of Der Tanz auf dem Vulkan, the plot involves the Russian revolution , and Lugosi plays a French aristocrat that falls in love with a Russian nightclub singer:

[ripper]

Oct 20, 2023 14:32:32 GMT helrunar said:

I really enjoy The Corpse Vanishes; and it was a favorite film of my late friend Coco, and I always remember him whenever I revisit this. Coco had a thing for Elizabeth Russell, who is always fascinating. Interesting little article about her:

thedreambookblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/moya-sestra-the-cat-like-career-of-elizabeth-russell/

The Devil Bat had such a fun role for Bela. Another very good film that gave him a lead part in this period was Columbia's Return of the Vampire, which had originally been intended as a sequel to Dracula, but they had to change the script due to legal issues (or so I have read). The last time I saw it, I thought Bela looked rather sweet and grandfatherly in most of his close-ups. Funny enough, his character is named Tesla in the film.

Hel.

Thanks for the link to Elizabeth Russell. She's so distinctive, very apt for her Lewton Cat People appearances. I also remember her well from Seventh Victim and her poignant portrayal.

[ripper]

Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla was a 1952 Jack Broder Productions film. As well as Lugosi, the main co-stars were Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, who modelled themselves on the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis double act of the time. Petrillo does sound and look a bit like Lewis. There are a couple of forgettable songs in a plot that makes no sense. Something about Mitchell and Petrillo opening the wrong door on an aeroplane and falling out. Sadly their parachutes worked and they end up in the jungle. There's the requisite mad scientist and Mitchell turns into a gorilla. It is absolutely dire, real bottom of the barrel fare. Poor Bela, it's sad to see him in something as bad as this. Wikipedia says the budget was $12,000--I'm shocked it was that much. Petrillo was only 18 when he made the film. I found his performance irritating and unfunny. However, he was very young here and went on to have a successful stand-up career in night clubs, as well as mentoring Richard Pryor, so it's perhaps a bit unfair to be too harsh on him as I have only seen him in this film.

[helrunar]

Elizabeth also appears in Weird Woman, one of the Lon Chaney Jr Inner Sanctum films. I finally caught up with it last year when it was available on youtube. Loosely based on the novel Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber Jr.

cheers, Hel.

[ripper]

The Ape Man, a Monogram distributed 1943 cheapie starring Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford and Louise Currie. Ford was in so many films in the 30s-50s, I particularly remember him from a couple of the Universal Mummy series. Currie was a serial queen, but also had a small part in Citizen Kane. Lugosi plays a scientist whose experiments turn him into an ape man. Injections of human spinal fluid turn him back to normal temporarily, so he needs regular supplies and goes on a killing spree with his gorilla. Ford and Currie play a reporter and photographer who are investigating the case. My goodness, another film where some body part or fluid is needed to provide temporary respite. Well, it's cheap, of course, but has a good cast, and zips along reasonably well. The only part I really don't like is the ending. I won't elaborate if you haven't seen it, but is just silly imo.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

I watched all the Lugosi Monogram 9 films last year. He made two with The East Side Kids, a popular street gang series. He is hardly in them. This series had a black actor in it, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, who on a positive note is treating like any other member of the gang. Apparently he was in the Our Gang films too. I had an elderly relative who once mentioned those films (or was it the  Dead End Kids). I've not seen any, or watched any. Perhaps someone on here knows something about the background to the street gang film origins.

[helrunar]

Our Gang were short features, also known as The Little Rascals, which might have been a title devised for television broadcasting in the 1950s. As a child in the 1960s, I saw some of them when they would still run, often in an afternoon slot with other programming targeted at kids, such as "Bozo the Clown," a clown with a garish costume whose show would be on when kids were getting home from school.

The Our Gang films were shot in the 1930s. I presume there are articles about the movies and the popular characters who featured, all played by child actors, on various online encyclopedia sites. Alfalfa, Spanky, Darla and others are still remembered by some. I would think they are all on youtube now.

cheers, Hel.

[ripper]

I don't know much about the street gang films, though there seems to be an awful lot of them. I've watched a number of them, mostly those that have an apparently supernatural/horror flavour, but for me they are just okay. I have a vague recollection that the BBC showed some of the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts during one school holiday in the mornings, probably sometime in the 80s. I think they had sound, for I believe the earliest were silent.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

We could add the British Quota Quickie to this thread. I have seen a couple. As a consequence of the Cinematograph Films Act 1927 there was a requirement that a certain amount of films with British content had to be shown. It just meant big US studios made cheap films with a British subsidiary that were often showed in empty cinemas to the ice cream lady. But some are actually interesting and watchable. I'd imagine they were also a breeding ground for actors and directors and those in the industry in general.

[ripper]

Oct 21, 2023 16:06:40 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

We could add the British Quota Quickie to this thread. I have seen a couple. As a consequence of the Cinematograph Films Act 1927 there was a requirement that a certain amount of films with British content had to be shown. It just meant big US studios made cheap films with a British subsidiary that were often showed in empty cinemas to the ice cream lady. But some are actually interesting and watchable. I'd imagine they were also a breeding ground for actors and directors and those in the industry in general.

I'm not too familiar with the 'quota quickies' but will have a look.